T – is for 10CC

Friday 28th April

Never the most fashionable of bands, at least not with the music press, but 10CC were never merely a pop-group.  Formed in the early Seventies as so many great bands were they were almost unique in having four brilliant songwriters.  Graham Gouldman had been writing ‘pop’ songs since his teens, many for The Hollies, Eric Stewart was an accomplished guitarist, and Kevin Godly and Lol Crème weren’t really musicians at first, but Art-school all-rounders.  The band were almost immediately successful with their first few singles, “Rubber Bullets”, “Donna” and my favourite “The Dean and I”.

They had hit after hit, but no two were anything like each other. ‘Art for Art’s Sake’, ‘Im Mandy, Fly Me’ and ‘Life Is A Minestrone’.  And their albums were full of varied tracks, often quite tongue in cheek, poking fun at the music business.  I always liked them; along with bands like ELO they were both Pop and Rock.  In many ways they were carrying on from The Beatles, who while breaking new ground always had an eye on the charts.  The band possibly reached their zenith with “I’m Not In Love”, where along with a clever lyric they harmonized the whole song and replaced instruments with vocal samples.  For a few years this song was voted favourite song on a couple of BBC programmes.

The band split after a few albums, Godley and Crème going off to make their own records and eventually becoming Video directors.  Gouldman and Stewart carried on as 10CC for a few years but eventually called it a day too.  But the band barely put a foot wrong in almost a decade, and there are hardly any poor songs on their records.

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